The Accident
by Arwen Eledel
Summary: Or, rather, three recounts of the events after it. (A modern one-shot about the DreamDorks, a.k.a. Hiccup, Jack Frost and Guy from the Croods, featuring Tadashi and Hiro Hamada.)


**A/N:** This is a chapter of a DreamDorks story I don't think I'm ever going to write, to be frank. But it related to an experience I recently had, so here it is. Also, in hindsight the style was somewhat influenced by the last couple of archs of Taisi's story 'Problem Child' which, by the way, is incredible, so shout out to them!

 **Unusual disclaimer:** Please read this with a grain of salt - while _it is_ inspired by personal experiences of me, my family and a classmate, this is in no way factual. I promise I tried my best, but Google can only be so helpful, not to mention hospitals everywhere are different. So just, you've been warned, yeah?

 **Usual disclaimer:** I only own the plot :)

* * *

 **The Accident,  
or rather three recounts of the events after it**

Hiccup didn't remember a lot – just bits and pieces.

He remembered his world suddenly tilting, then a crash and white-hot pain for all of one moment. Waking up to a harsh light stabbing at his eyes, and to a body that didn't quite feel his own.

He remembered panicking. Something was weighing on his finger, something was coming out of his neck and hand; the oxygen mask felt like it was suffocating him. His head hurt, his leg hurt, every damn muscle in his body hurt and he was so thirsty and so scared he wanted to cry.

He remembered seeing his friends there, and they might've been talking but he couldn't grasp what their words meant. He desperately wanted to tell them something – what, he couldn't recall – but he wasn't sure any sound made it past the mask, or left his lips at all. God, he couldn't breathe.

He hated that he remembered the night in the ICU, because it was worse than those panicked moments right after he'd woken up, it was so much worse. He was exhausted, tired to his very bones, but he couldn't sleep because there was so much pain, and that cursed light overhead wouldn't stop scorching his eyes. And the man in the bed next to his was coughing as if he were dying, and a voice farther down in the room wouldn't stop yelling profanities at the nurses, and someone was watching a football match that he thought he'd promised someone to watch together… And he remembered crying, terrified to shield his eyes with a hand – not so much out of fear that he wouldn't be able to move it, but that he'd see the tube pumping blood in his bloodstream; he remembered drifting in and out of a sleep that brought no rest, and he remembered the night stretching into something torturous and infinite.

Sometimes nurses walked by, checking equipment, asking questions. Hiccup had no idea why, but he said he was fine every time they asked. (He wasn't fine. Maybe he was more fine than his neighbour, who might as well have been coughing up his lungs.) He was scared to ask for water, but then came a nurse whose voice was soothing and confident, and reminiscent of someone he thought he knew; so he swallowed his fear and asked, and with a kindness he'd forgotten existed she brought him a syringe full of water, plus a few more which she left on a table beside the bed.

He remembered crying when they finally moved him out of the ICU and into a small room. It did have an occupant – a sleeping boy of no more than fourteen – but it also had Jack and Guy in it, and Hiccup would never forget the wave of relief that crashed over him as he saw them.

"It's Sunday, isn't it?" he asked, straining to speak as loudly as possible so they could hear him.

Guy smiled in a pained way. "Thursday morning. Only one night in the ICU, just like we told you."

Behind him Jack looked so scared it physically hurt Hiccup's heart.

He barely remembered the check-up, but he remembered cottoning onto the fact that he'd had an accident. How, he couldn't quite figure out, but it had landed him in the hospital with a few too many injuries.

"It could've been so much worse," Guy had quietly told him, "you could've lost a leg." _You could've died_ sort of hung in the air, unsaid but very much there.

As it was, he'd gotten out of the whole ordeal with a couple of screws in his left tibia, two short metal rods and a few more screws to fuse five of his vertebrae, some minor internal damage and enough bruises and stitches to put a blue patchwork to shame; so he lay in his bed in a small room somewhere on the eighth floor of a hospital, hooked onto painkillers that didn't seem to be doing anything, and did his best to understand what the doctor was saying. (He failed.)

But Guy was nodding as if it all had some sort of logic, all practical and calm, and Jack hadn't left the chair by Hiccup's bed at all since they brought him there, so he figured he'd be okay.

After the doctor left, Guy ran to the hospital store to grab stuff Hiccup was allowed to eat and, in doing that, missed the physiotherapist. She was a young woman, bubbly and smiling and kind, and she told him that he'd be relearning to walk in no time. She helped him turn to his sides and even sit, and taught Jack to do it as well, then promised she'd be back the next day before moving on to check on the boy in the other bed.

The day seemed to stretch on after that. Hiccup felt like he was burning alive, he asked for water every ten minutes; he couldn't eat more than a few crackers, he threw up twice (mostly water). He constantly called to Jack to help him turn to his left or to his right or on his back, but everything hurt and it was a struggle to find the least uncomfortable position to rest in. He fell asleep and awoke fifteen minutes later, and fell asleep again, and it seemed to be no different than the ICU.

Except it was, it was so much better – because his friends were there, to talk to him and to give him water and to promise it would all be alright. And Guy made and answered phone calls (because Hiccup couldn't even lift the damn phone, that's how much his back hurt, not to mention the impossibility of actually _thinking_ ), and he took care of all adult things that needed to be taken care of; and Jack loaded up Scandinavian myths and Viking legends on his phone and read to him, lulling him into a most welcome drowsiness that took his mind far away from the pain, into a world of valour and tragic beauty.

And it didn't matter that soon they'd have to leave and that he'd spend the night alone again – it would all be alright. The other boy's big brother had promised Hiccup would be looked after in their absence, and Jack had said he'd videochat him from home so he could see Toothless, and Guy had vowed they'd be back again first thing tomorrow.

It would all be alright – despite the pain and the fear and the screws in his bones, and his hazy recollection of those two days.

The worst seemed to have passed.

* * *

Guy didn't remember much either – just a frantic haze of worry.

He remembered the sudden sound of a crash and then, a split second later, Jack's scream; and he'd turned to see Hiccup – oh, heavens – Hiccup laying there, unmoving… And he didn't remember how they'd gotten to him, only fear, fear, fear and so much red… And he remembered Jack yelling at him to call and ambulance, and he didn't know how he'd managed it.

He remembered sirens, and then the white corridors of a hospital. He remembered Jack stumbling in a chair, pale and drained and trembling something fierce, at a loss for what to do – and that's when something in him had snapped and all the training had kicked in, and a different haze took over him. Hadn't he learned to be a help, _a constant_ in situations like this, where people were thrown in the mess of institutions when they couldn't quite navigate? So he grabbed Jack by the shoulders and vowed to him it'd be alright, and then he left in search of answers.

He remembered answering questions about Hiccup's life and health record on autopilot, being promised updates as soon as there were any; he remembered waiting and waiting in the white corridor, never letting go of Jack's shoulder. He remembered the blissful relief when they were told Hiccup was out of surgery and stable, and then the nausea at the news of what the damage was. (At the thoughts of what could have happened if they'd been slower in getting him help, if he hadn't been wearing his helmet, if, if, if…)

He remembered the fear, the palpable fear that gripped his heart and drained his lungs at the sight of Hiccup in the ICU – pale on the white sheets, strapped to various machines, pierced by a few too many tubes, weakly, desperately tugging at the oxygen mask over his face; his eyes – wide and panicked, unable to focus completely, his voice – hoarse, barely there, drowning in the space between his lips and the mask.

Guy remembered trying to be reassuring. (He was pretty sure he'd failed.)

He remembered lying awake in his bed, listening to Jack's restless pacing in the other room. _We'll see him in the morning,_ he'd repeated to himself over and over, _we'll see him and we'll look after him._ The night couldn't pass fast enough.

He remembered thinking _finally_ – it was finally morning, they were finally at the hospital, a nurse was finally wheeling Hiccup's bed in the small room he'd occupy for the time being. He looked tired and scared and in pain – he looked at them and he looked relieved.

"It's Sunday, isn't it?" he asked, and they had to strain to hear him; and Guy's heart broke as he tried to smile and said it was only Thursday.

The doctor came and went, and left Hiccup to deal with the knowledge of his condition. Guy had dully noted everything the doctor had said – he'd promised himself to look after his friend, hadn't he? He wrote down the important things and told the others he'd run to the hospital store to get Hiccup water and whatever else he could eat; as soon as he set foot in the hallway he closed his eyes and allowed himself a moment of weakness. God, what had they done to deserve this? Hiccup was writhing in pain, Jack was so rigid with worry that it hurt to watch, his own mind seemed to be shutting down… But no, he had to be strong – bad things had happened to them before and they'd happen again, it was no use despairing now.

Just as he'd squared his shoulders and set foot towards the lifts, Guy ran into a familiar face. "Tadashi? Is everything alright, what are you doing here?"

"Gilbert, hi, haven't seen you since freshman year! I'm alright, don't worry – I'm looking after my brother though, he's recovering from a surgery." The other's open face suddenly darkened. "Why are you in the hospital? Everything okay?"

"Yes, no, it's, ah… Hiccup – Henrik? If you remember him? He had an accident with his motorbike, they just brought him up from the ICU." At the other's look of terror Guy hurried to assure: "He's fine, well, fine considering… His leg and his back especially took the brunt of it, but he'll be alright, he'll walk again. It's just, it's hard right now, on all of us."

Tadashi squeezed his shoulder gently. "Hey, it gets better, you know it does. And for what it's worth, I've got your back, yeah? Hiro needs to stay here at least another three days, so I promise I'll check on Henrik at night or whenever you're not around."

It was like he'd lifted a weight off Guy's shoulders when he hadn't even know he'd carried one. "You will?"

"Of course. And I'm glad he's alright, he's a good guy."

"Thank you so much, Tadashi, honestly, I…" He felt he could cry from relief. "I'm going to the hospital store, do you need anything? For your brother or for yourself?"

Tadashi smiled at him and things were finally, _finally_ looking up. (If he later found out that Hiro was the one in Hiccup's room and nearly screamed his thanks to the skies, well, his friends were none the wiser.)

The day seemed to stretch on after that. Guy spent most of it in a flurry of phone calls – to let the university know, to arrange for someone to give Hiccup notes when this whole thing was over (because God knew that nerd would want to be caught up), to insure his insurance, to inform his boss at the vet clinic and ask him to save Hiccup's place there, to ask the neighbour to let Toothless out in the yard… He couldn't reach Hiccup's father – his secretary answered the phone, telling him that the mayor was in a meeting. Guy resolved to call again later, though he wasn't looking forward to it – out of his two friends Hiccup had the worse relationship with his family (even if it wasn't by choice) and Guy wasn't entirely sure what the reaction to his news would be. But he was all too happy to play adult and let Hiccup rest, leaving him in Jack's care. And as the afternoon progressed the lines of pain and worry slowly eased off of their faces, and Guy could finally breathe more easily.

* * *

Unlike Guy and Hiccup, Jack had the misfortune of remembering everything. Every. Damn. Agonising. Second.

He could never put into words the sight of the accident itself, but it was burned in the backs of his eyelids, buried so deep inside his brain that he had trouble breathing. It had happened so fast and yet so slow, and there was nothing he could do, nothing he _could've_ done; and the very first moment after, he could've sworn his heart had shattered with the force of his scream.

He couldn't get to Hiccup fast enough. He pleaded aloud, prayed to all deities listening as he searched for his friend's pulse; his head swam with panic and the overwhelming feeling of utter inadequacy because he couldn't do _anything_ , not even call an ambulance – his hands were shaking too much.

He could tell you how many times his heart had beaten during the ambulance ride, could repeat every complicated word the paramedics had exchanged; he could never forget how Guy had been as still as death and how Hiccup hadn't moved once.

And when they reached the hospital his heart broke anew – "You can't go any further, you have to wait here." And so he stumbled in a chair, and felt as though he were drowning – stripped of every last way to help Hiccup, even by being by his side; doomed to _wait_ – God, was there anything worse than waiting?

Guy grabbed him by the shoulders then. "It's going to be alright," he said, a new hardness in his eyes, "I swear to you, Jack, he's gonna be fine, he _will_ pull through this." He nodded, as if on autopilot – only then did he feel himself shaking. Guy's grip tightened for a second and then he was off – to find answers to questions neither really knew if they wanted answered.

So many hours had passed in that corridor – white and lifeless and echoing, and so very suffocating. Stranded in the space between desperate hope and heart-stopping fear, Jack nearly lost his grip on sanity; his only tether was Guy's hand on his shoulder, holding tightly enough to anchor them both. A million questions were swirling in his mind, each more worrying than the next; a million prayers, a million fears. God, what would they tell Hiccup's father?

When a doctor finally came, he brought answers and new heaps of worry. While alive and stable – which, thank the heavens! – Hiccup had to stay in the ICU for the night so they could monitor him more closely. Jack felt irrational panic close up his throat.

"Please, can't we see him, even for a minute? He's our friend, our _best friend_ , I need to make sure-"

The doctor finally conceded – and even though they'd be admitted in one at a time and for no more than two minutes, Jack counted it as a win.

It didn't calm him to see Hiccup, not in the slightest – for his friend looked neither dead, nor alive, in pain and scared out of his mind. Jack could never forget the sight of him laying there, white against the white pillow, struggling to breathe; it would plague his nightmares for years to come.

He surged forward and grasped his hand, mindful of the tube in his wrist, and somehow seeing him like this was worse than waiting on news. "It's okay, buddy, you're alright," he murmured, holding Hiccup's frantic gaze with his own; but the green eyes were hazy – Jack wasn't sure his friend understood or even heard him. (He continued anyway.) "It's gonna be fine, you hear me? You'll get better, they'll look after you, me and Guy will-" Hiccup made a sound that was half pain and half plea and Jack's heart shattered. "Only one night, buddy, only one and you'll be out of here, I promise you, and then we won't leave your side." He vowed this to Hiccup and to himself, and hated his inability to do anything else.

And all too soon he was ushered out, and he'd barely had the presence of mind to warn Guy about Hiccup's condition.

He didn't sleep that night, he didn't close his eyes for longer than it took him to blink. Anxious to get to his friend and unable to do so, he stayed up and soon his feet had all but worn a path in his room's floor; and as the hours until morning dragged on he had to stop himself from crying out in anguish. _Once we're there_ , he'd reasoned, _once he's out of the ICU I'll finally be able to help him._

(Guy remembered the night as the continuous act of lying awake; Jack remembered it second by second, and each and every one had felt like an infinity.)

But it was morning at last and the two watched as the small hospital room's door opened and a nurse wheeled in Hiccup's bed. For a moment he looked as scared as he had in the ICU and Jack's heart froze ten times over; then he saw them, and relaxed so suddenly that Jack had to wonder if his friend was losing consciousness.

"It's Sunday, isn't it?" Hiccup murmured, quiet and raspy, and Jack knew he'd failed in keeping the pain and fear off of his face. But Guy smiled, gentle as anything, and said it was still Thursday; and when he didn't move to take the chair next to Hiccup's bed Jack felt a rush of affection for his friend, who was so perceptive and knew them so well.

It was from that chair that he nodded along to what the doctor was saying, far more concerned with the lines of pain on Hiccup's features. He almost didn't register it when Guy left after that to get them stuff from the hospital store, nor did he pay much attention to the younger boy's brother who entered soon after that; however, when the physiotherapist came he was all ears. She was like a ray of sunlight, bright and bringing hope, and Jack found the lump in his throat melting a little at her confidence in Hiccup's full recovery. She helped him turn to his sides and sit, even stand for a moment, holding tightly onto the both of them; she also showed Jack how to assist in those and, with the widest smile, said she'd see them when she came again the next day.

"Remember," she finished cheerfully, "Hiro, in the other bed, had a spinal fusion surgery quite like yours just two days ago – many of the things he does today you might be attempting tomorrow!" And with a wave she moved to check on the boy as well; and she missed the flutter of comfort in Jack's chest as he watched Hiro sit up long enough to eat and finish a cup of tea.

The day seemed to stretch on after that. It hurt to watch Hiccup in pain, but at least now there was something he could do to make it a bit better; so Jack helped him turn this way and that, and gave him water, and put a cool hand to his forehead, and read him stories to take his mind off of reality, and didn't leave his side once. He was eternally grateful that Guy let him do this – kind, perceptive, responsible Guy, who took care of all pressing matters like it was his job, who knew that he _needed_ to help Hiccup to retain his sanity. Guy, who even now was out in the hallway, talking on the phone and arranging things – while Jack sat next to Hiccup, who'd fallen asleep halfway through a Viking legend.

"He seems to be getting better."

Jack turned to smile tightly at Hiro's older brother. "You think so?"

"He's sleeping, at least – I could barely get Hiro to sleep yesterday. I'm Tadashi, by the way, Gilbert said you were Jack?"

"Yeah." He shook the offered hand. "You know Guy? Gilbert, that is?"

Tadashi nodded. "We shared a class in freshman year, him and Henrik and I." The corners of his mouth turned downwards. "I'm sorry this happened to him. I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but _Henrik_ …"

"Yeah, I know."

They were quiet for a bit, just watching the steady rise and fall of Hiccup's chest. Jack sighed and Tadashi looked at him. "You're a worrier, aren't you?"

"I can't help it, he's… him and Guy are my best friends, and it sucks that he's in pain and there's nothing I can do about it."

The other smiled. "I'm sure you're both helping him plenty – but I know what you mean, it's…" He threw a quick glance towards Hiro's bed. "… it's hard."

Jack looked at him sympathetically. "How is your brother doing? Spinal fusion as well, right?"

"Yeah, a tough case of scoliosis." Tadashi shrugged. "He's doing fine, I think. He's way more mobile today, at any rate!"

Jack felt himself smile. "I can't believe they've got him walking two days after his surgery."

The other laughed. "Yeah, me neither! He's determined to get to the end of the hallway by Saturday, the little knucklehead." His smile softened. "They'll be fine, the both of them – they're too stubborn to stay bedridden for long anyway."

Jack chuckled. "Yeah, there's that."

"And I also came to tell you - to promise you, rather, that I'll look after Henrik through the night. So, you know, don't go worrying about that too. I've already told Gilbert I'd do it, but I thought I'd let you know as well."

"I appreciate it," Jack said gratefully, "thank you, truly."

"It's nothing," Tadashi assured him, "you'd do the same."

"'S what people do for their brothers," Jack shrugged softly. A warm silence settled over them as they smiled at each other in understanding.

Maybe it would be alright. Hiccup and Hiro were still in pain when they woke up, but the five of them piled on and around Hiccup's bed and spend the afternoon listening to Jack read and resting in comfortable quietness. Hiccup slept a lot, so he couldn't really hold a conversation and those were carried out without him, but were light and pleasant none the less. At one point both patients fell asleep, curled up on the bed, and the sound of their steady breathing brought the others great comfort. And Jack threw a hand over Guy's shoulders and sighed, finally relaxing – for the first time since Hiccup's bike had slipped and their world was thrown in the limbo between hope and fear.

Maybe it would be alright. At last they were all breathing more easily – the worst seemed to have passed.


End file.
